Michael Lester was 50 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Friday, November 16, 2007. The Atlanta Police Department investigated his death, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Michael Lester has been made public.
No news story about the killing, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but little of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Michael Lester is a common name, and searches for it are dominated by other people. They include a Kansas man convicted in a fatal Topeka crash, a Florida man who called 911 to report his own drunken driving in 2018, a Georgia man convicted of crimes against a child in Jones County, a video journalist and a man of the same first and last name who died in Decatur in 2025. None of those people is the 50-year-old who died in Atlanta in November 2007, and none of those cases has anything to do with his death.
His age stands out. At 50, he was far older than most homicide victims in Atlanta in those years, who were mostly in their teens and 20s. A man of 50 would likely have had grown children, siblings and long-time friends and co-workers, people who knew his routine and may remember when it stopped.
His case does not appear on the 2018 Washington Post list of unsolved homicides published online, but the Post's underlying database still records it as open with no arrest. No cold-case listing, reward offer or public appeal for information about his death could be found.
The location recorded in the database places his death in southwest Atlanta, south and west of downtown, an area of residential streets, apartment complexes and commercial corridors. His death came on a Friday in mid-November 2007, the week before Thanksgiving, when people in the area may have been out and may remember the police response that followed.
Atlanta, the capital of Georgia and the center of a metro area of more than 5 million people, recorded roughly 75 to 130 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017. Most victims were young men killed with guns, and many of those killings never led to an arrest. Cases with few public details often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Michael Lester could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Michael Lester, saw him in the days before he died, or heard talk afterward of what happened to him, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (404-577-8477), which may pay a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest.
